A £50,000 donation has been made towards helping complete a new community garden in Dundee.
The cash, supplied by Augean North Sea Services, which has developed a new decommissioning centre at the Port of Dundee, was handed over to those behind the Tay View Community Garden.
The funds for the plot, located on Robertson Street in Stobswell, will go towards building an on-site community chalet with gardening equipment.
The chalet will be an important focal point for the community garden, providing a pleasant meeting place for the local community with kitchen facilities and a storage area for equipment.
It is hoped the chalet will create a space for art, cooking and other social events to take place, which will allow a wider group of people to become involved with, and benefit from, the facilities.
Simon Gibb, Director of Augean North Sea Services, added: “We thought that creating the garden for the community to socialise, learn new skills and grow their own healthy fruit and vegetables was a fantastic project to support, as it will bring people together with so many positive outcomes.
“Augean North Sea Services is celebrating its fifth birthday this year, and being able to donate £50,000 to the community garden is a great way to start our celebrations”.
Stewart Fairweather, Maryfield community officer, said the project has come to fruition much quicker than expected.
“We only got the ball rolling in October when we sent out hundreds of leaflets to test interest in the neighbourhood,” he said.
“We made sure the council didn’t build on the land and we got a fantastic response back from people who were interested in tending to the garden.
“It was all about keeping space in the community for growing so we are very pleased to see this coming together.”
The project was also the beneficiary of a £61,000 council grant, with Councillor Lynne Short involved in the effort.
Augean North Sea Services has developed a new decommissioning centre at the Port of Dundee, operational from this April, after entering into a partnership with Forth Ports, which runs the dock.
It will provide an integrated onshore disposal and waste management service for a variety of small and large scale decommissioning projects.
The facility will continue to be developed over the next year, and beyond, to create one of the UK’s largest decommissioning facilities.
The company hopes to establish Dundee as a global centre of excellence for decommissioning activities in the longer term.
